The World Shipping Council (WSC) has released its Containers Lost at Sea Report: 2026 Update, revealing that an estimated 1,478 containers were lost at sea during 2025 out of approximately 280 million containers transported worldwide.
Although the figure represents just 0.0005 percent of global container traffic, it marks a significant increase from the 576 containers lost in 2024 and exceeds the recent three-year average. According to the report, one major vessel casualty alone accounted for 640 lost containers, representing around 43 percent of the total annual losses.
Challenging weather conditions in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, together with fire-related incidents, were identified as the primary causes of container losses during the year.
The report also highlights progress in container recovery efforts, with 128 containers successfully recovered in 2025, the highest annual recovery figure since the World Shipping Council began collecting recovery data in 2023.
Since launching its annual survey in 2011, the WSC has monitored container losses to improve transparency and support safety initiatives across the container shipping industry. From 1 January 2026, new international regulations under the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) require all containers lost or observed drifting at sea to be formally reported, with flag states submitting annual data to the International Maritime Organization.
The report also outlines several industry initiatives aimed at improving cargo safety, including the WSC Cargo Safety Program to reduce the misdeclaration of dangerous goods, updates to the Cargo Transport Units (CTU) Code, the Top Tier Joint Industry Project and new International Maritime Dangerous Goods (IMDG) Code requirements covering charcoal shipments.
The WSC report is based on operational data provided by member companies representing approximately 90 percent of the global container shipping fleet, providing one of the industry’s most comprehensive assessments of container losses at sea.
